Food For Thought For Christmas Chivalry Lives

December 8, 1985|By Nancy Pate of the Sentinel staff

The Book of the Medieval Knight, by Stephen Turnbull (Crown, $17.95): Knighthood was in flower from 1330 to 1490, a colorful and turbulent era also known as the high Middle Ages. Turnbull combines scholarship with enthusiasm as he explores knighthood both as a concept and a reality. Subjects discussed include medieval warfare, the Hundred Years War, the War of the Roses and the lives and exploits of many knights. Turnbull also draws a connection between the chivalric ideal and the martial excess of the age. Numerous maps, photographs and other illustrations are included, but there still are long blocks of unbroken text. It's a book for history buffs and those wanting to look beyond the surface romance of the period.